Adam Murray looking for a reaction from his Mansfield Town players at Exeter City

Mansfield Town Manager Adam Murray 'Picture by Dan Westwell

Published:18:31Monday 18 April 2016

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Adam Murray is looking for a reaction from his Mansfield Town players after their 5-0 thumping of rivals Notts County.

The Stags manager reflected on the last time his side overcame Notts in the reverse fixture earlier in the season and what happened in the following game at Accrington Stanley.

Mansfield narrowly lost at Accrington and Murray is determined history doesn’t repeat itself when they come up against another play-off contender in Exeter City on Tuesday.

He said: “We’ve beaten Notts County at their place and we went to Accrington and we said we didn’t want that (an ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show performance’).

“We made a huge issue of it and got a below par performance so I’m hoping we’ve taken messages from that. It’s all part of the journey for the players.

“They need to understand that it was a great result, emotionally very draining - even for myself on Saturday, but we go again.

“We’ve got four games now and we want to win all four. There’s no reason why we can’t win all four of those games.

“When we’re playing like this we’re a tough opponent. The important thing is to get a reaction from Saturday, not to sit back and enjoy the plaudits.

“The plaudits have gone now.

“The players will know it’s Exeter and that’s all that matters now.”

Exeter sit ninth in the table, two points from seventh place AFC Wimbledon, after a goalless draw at home to League Two champions Northampton Town on Saturday.

And Murray is expecting a tough game.

“It’s the business end,” he said. “Everybody’s fighting for something up there. There are a lot of teams up there fighting; whether it be the top three, the top seven or to hit their own personal targets.

“It’s going to be a tough game. It’s one that I said to the lads yesterday that we need to right the wrongs from when we played them at home.

“They are the only team I felt that have beaten us this season. As a manager I got beaten on that Tuesday night against Exeter because they did a real job on us.

“It’s one we want to put right but we’re in very good form. We’re very confident and we’ll got there and play our game. We’ll be aware of their strengths and weaknesses but when you’ve got a bit of momentum like we have you just go with it.

“We’re happy with the weekend. The boys deserved it. Not just for Saturday’s performance but for the run of recent games and the performances they’ve put in. They probably didn’t get their just rewards.

“I might sound a little arrogant but we believe we should be in the play-offs at the minute. It’s tough to take that we are not but it makes us stronger.

“We take everything that’s gone against us as a learning curve this season and it’ll keep us strong for the future.”

He added: “I think they’ve got a very tactically aware manager. He’s a very hard opponent to prepare for. They’re obviously in a good run of form and play some good stuff.

“We know if we put the right structure in and game plan in place we’re a hard team to beat. We’ve got a good away record, I think we’ve won nine away games this season, so we know if we’re on it they’ll have a tough game.

“It’s not going to be a walk in the park. We know they can be a very good team on their day, we’ve seen that and make sure we’re prepared for that, while also focusing on our strengths.”

A point at Exeter would see Mansfield reach Murray’s target of 60 points for the season.

He said: “It would be tremendous. We’ve spoken about breaking that barrier as quickly as we can. The way this league has gone this season you never know what might happen.

“We want four wins from four games. If we get four wins you never know what’s around the corner.”

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